


Born to be Yours

by alpacasandravens



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Soulmate AU, bruce being incredibly oblivious, canon divergent post 4x20, canon rewrite of 4b, everyone being irritated with ra's al ghul, featuring jeremiah's bruce wayne obsession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 16:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17584184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacasandravens/pseuds/alpacasandravens
Summary: Basically a soulmate au rewrite of 4B, in which a person can hear the thoughts and sense the feelings of their soulmate. That doesn't make it any easier for Jeremiah and Bruce to understand each other.





	Born to be Yours

**Author's Note:**

> anyway if you've listened to limetown the soulmate au here works a lot like the tech does there, except it only establishes a connection between the two soulmates. If you haven't listened to limetown, well it should make sense anyway.

Bruce blew out the candles on the cake in front of him. Alfred was smiling and Selina was laughing and Bruce was happy too, but underneath it is a heavy sort of numbness. Eighteen. It almost doesn’t seem real. He’s an adult now, technically, but he thinks he’s been an adult for a long time now. Since he watched his parents die in that alley. Since he started the first detailed investigation into the corruption in his company at thirteen.

There’s only one thing that will truly change now. Soulmates are rare, especially in Gotham, where most citizens don’t have long or happy lives. Still, those lucky enough to have a soulmate are the happiest people Bruce has ever seen. Now that he is eighteen, he can find his – if he has one. From their first meeting, soulmates can hear the thoughts and feel the emotions of their partner. Bruce remembered growing up, seeing his father smile at his mother and knowing she could feel the love he felt for her.

In all likelihood, Bruce doesn’t have a soulmate. Most people don’t, or if they do, they never meet. That doesn’t stop people from having relationships, even getting married, to someone not their soulmate. Sometimes, those relationships worked out. Still, Bruce would like to think that he has a soulmate, that he can have the same kind of bond his parents had with someone.

For a long time, Bruce has thought (hoped) that Selina was his soulmate. She hadn’t acted any differently around him since her eighteenth birthday the year before, but then again, Selina was confusing. She could go from happy to angry in an instant, leaving Bruce only with the sinking feeling he said something wrong, but with no idea what it was. Still, she was beautiful and intelligent and Bruce liked her.

“Happy birthday,” Selina said, giving Bruce a kiss on the cheek. She smiled at him before getting started on her cake, and the smile was full of such genuine love Bruce’s chest felt tight. When his life had been torn apart in that alley, he never thought he would have something this normal again. A day where he could just have cake with Alfred and Selina, who might or might not be his girlfriend (he wasn’t sure), and just be happy. 

Then Jim Gordon burst into the kitchen, and Bruce knew that peace was gone. 

 

Bruce followed Jim and Lucius down the steps and into the concrete maze below. The further they walked, the more convinced he was that something was wrong. He’d read enough stories as a child to know that he didn’t want to meet what dwelled in the center of the labyrinth. Especially not if it was a Valeska.

They had barely entered the room when Jeremiah spoke.

“I watch the news, and I know why you’re here, Mr. Gordon,” Jeremiah said, pouring himself a drink. “You must be out of your mind if you think I’m going to be led like a lamb to slaughter.”

Jim started with one of his speeches about how he realized that but sometimes people have to do things they don’t want to do to ensure the safety of Gotham. Most of the time, these speeches worked for Jim. They awakened some deep, heroic impulse in the listener, making them want to follow him, to help their city. This time, it didn’t.

Bruce barely had to look at Jeremiah to know he was terrified. Angry and terrified and utterly immune to Jim’s words.

“For God’s sake Gordon, you have to know what he wants,” Jeremiah said, pointing to Bruce with the hand holding his glass. The alcohol within sloshed dangerously. “To murder us both on live television.”

Interesting, Bruce thought. Hidden behind Jeremiah’s self-preservation instinct and condescension for Jim was a genuine desire to not see Bruce hurt. He could work with that.

“Mr. Valeska, I’m Bruce Wayne. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Bruce said, extending his hand.

“Likewise. I wish the circumstances were better.” Jeremiah turned and shook his hand. His eyes flickered over Bruce, as if trying to catalog not what he looked like but what his brain looked like.

At that moment, Bruce knew two things. He knew that Jeremiah, for all that he lived in an underground bunker straight out of a horror film, was not Jerome. Though they had the same red hair and the same face (or the face Jerome would have had, if he had gotten to keep his), Jeremiah’s eyes and mind were human, not hollowed-out and mad like his brother. 

He also knew that Jeremiah’s anger and condescension towards Jim had disappeared as soon as Bruce had spoken. For some reason, Jeremiah viewed Bruce as separate from the GCPD, and Bruce could use that to his advantage.

“May I ask what it is you’ve been working on?”

“Uh, yeah.” Jeremiah turned to the model on the table in front of them. He explained his generator, and how it worked. Blueprints stuck out from under the model, and from what Bruce could see combined with Jeremiah’s explanation, he didn’t even have to fake his admiration. 

Jeremiah had stopped talking and was watching Bruce with a half-smile on his face. Somehow, Bruce knew how important it was to Jeremiah that Bruce appreciated the project, appreciated his intellect. 

“You have a brilliant mind,” Bruce said, and he meant it. 

He launched into one of his own Jim Gordon brand speeches, told Jeremiah how important it was that he help them fight Jerome, but he made sure he gave Jeremiah a way out. He wasn’t going to pressure him into risking his life. From the moment he started talking, he felt a wave of incredible validation. He was doing something Jim couldn’t do. He didn’t stop to consider the way the feeling almost seemed to come from outside of him.

“Well said.” Jeremiah screwed up his face and threw back the last of his drink. Bruce knew he had convinced him.

 

Sometimes, Bruce forgot just how insane Jerome truly was. He could remember both times Jerome had held him hostage, but as time passed, he had convinced himself that his memories of Jerome were larger than life. Surely, no one could revel in this kind of chaos. No one could laugh as funhouse mirrors reflected their face sliding off their skull a thousand times. 

Jerome could. He danced on the stage, speakers blaring the sound of his distorted guitar and the rest of the Arkham escapees equally bad attempts at playing a song. “Why are we waiting? Waiting, waiting, waiting, someone’s gonna die!” Jerome punctuated the end of the line with a dramatic guitar riff.

Beside Bruce, Jeremiah seemed to shrink back into himself. He hunched his shoulders, either to hide in his jacket or to appear shorter. Bruce squared his shoulders and faced Jerome.

“Well. Look who decided to show up,” Jerome drawled into the mic. “We were starting to get nervous! Especially the mayor here, my guest of honor.” He chuckled, but from the way he waved the hand holding the trigger, Bruce could tell he wasn’t happy he’d only gotten to explode one person. “Please, take your seats onstage.”

The crowd parted as Bruce marched toward Jerome. With every step, another memory flashed through his head. Jerome holding a knife to his throat at the charity gala. Bruce, bloody frown painted on his face, raising a shard of glass over Jerome’s faceless body. Jerome, choking on his laughter as he watched the strongman pummel Bruce in the diner. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was panicking, a small voice that didn’t quite sound like his repeating _no, no, no, he’ll hurt me again_. Jim won’t let him hurt me, Bruce told himself. This was his duty.

“Come on, don’t be shy,” the very real Jerome in front of him said.

Bruce shot a glance backward and saw Jeremiah take a deep breath, finally moving from where he had stood slightly behind Jim. He wasn’t hiding anymore. He couldn’t.

He refused to look away when Jerome fastened the collar of explosives around his neck. He sat in his assigned chair and waited for Jim’s snipers to take Jerome out, steadfastly ignoring the terror that still hadn’t left him.

 

Jerome’s body lay sprawled on the roof of the car. Blood still leaked from the bullet would in his chest, and during the fight and the fall it had covered his gloves and splattered over his coat. Even in death, a rictus grin was pasted on his face. 

After all these years, Jeremiah couldn’t believe that Jerome was really dead. The last connection with his childhood was gone. He’d thought Jerome was dead, years before when Galavan had stabbed him in the neck on live television. When he had finally accepted it, Jeremiah had had fun. He’d talked to people, left the bunker on a semi-regular basis. He’d even gone on a date once, not that he had trusted the other man enough to even tell him his real name. And then Jerome had come back and he’d been plunged back into the fear that had always haunted him.

He knew he should be happy. For years, he’d told himself that he hated Jerome, that even if Jerome hadn’t tried to kill him when they were kids, he would have, that he’d done the right thing in leaving him with their mother. But seeing him lying here, dead through his own insanity, Jeremiah began to doubt that.

Finally, he was free. It’s what he had wanted his whole life, wasn’t it? To be free of the specter of his family? Jeremiah reached up and wiped a tear off his face with the sleeve of his jacket. Sometimes, things weren’t as rational as he’d like to pretend.

He pulled his coat tighter, both to ward off the cold and the thoughts of his past. It was time to go back to his bunker. Maybe he’d have Ecco put on a movie so he could escape from today. The detectives watched him walk past, but said nothing. 

Jeremiah didn’t know what he wanted. He was grateful to them for letting him have his space, process his brother’s death in his own way. But he couldn’t help but feel that he had been used and discarded, that the only reason anyone had bothered to speak to him was Jerome’s mad show. His fingers had just found his phone in his coat pocket when Bruce spoke to him.

“Mr. Valeska, I meant what I said about your work being of importance to the city. Let Wayne Enterprises fund your work with a grant.”

Jeremiah could hear the words that Bruce spoke to him, but he could also hear Bruce’s mental refrain of _I’m sorry, I’m sorry._ He could feel just how much Bruce wanted him to be okay, how much he hoped Jeremiah hadn’t noticed his blatant manipulation back in the bunker, how much he genuinely wanted to help. 

His mother had never been one to believe in soulmates, but he’d heard stories. The boys at St. Ignatius would hope for one right up until someone else found out, and then they’d go back to pretending that love was gross. Jeremiah had never dreamed he would have a soulmate. He didn’t even have a family. But he could hear Bruce’s voice in his head, and being able to feel Bruce’s bravery had gotten him through Jerome’s show, and there was only one possible explanation for that. 

“Thank you.”

Today had been too much. Jeremiah shook hands with Bruce, then turned away. Before he reached the end of the block, he had called a taxi. He wasn’t sure if he would leave the bunker for a while. His whole world had just crashed around him, and it would take some time to build it up again.

 

A box waited for Jeremiah on the main table in the bunker. It was purple, covered with a huge white bow. He wasn’t sure how it had gotten there, as the mailmen didn’t know the path through the maze and they didn’t deliver this late at night besides, but there it was. 

The tag read Wayne Enterprises, and Jeremiah shook his head, smiling fondly. So his soulmate was the kind of person to give spontaneous presents. He never would’ve guessed.

In hindsight, the black and red diamond pattern of the box under the paper should have tipped him off. The speed of delivery, when he had just seen Bruce not a half hour before, should have notified him something was wrong. But he was too happy his soulmate (he still could barely believe he had one) had sent him a present, so he unwrapped the purple paper, opened the harlequin box, and was rewarded with Jerome’s final gift.

 

At first, Bruce wasn’t quite sure why he wanted to work with Jeremiah on his generator project. He wasn’t an engineer; he hadn’t even gone to college. As the weeks, then months, passed, he found himself making excuses to go to the bunker until he didn’t have to make them anymore. Eventually, Jeremiah just expected him to come, would just drop a “See you tomorrow” when Bruce left at night. 

Being around Jeremiah was surprisingly calming. Ever since his parents had died, Bruce hadn’t had a lot of friends his own age. Due to some combination of Bruce’s wealth, notoriety, and social ineptitude, he’d spent more time with Alfred than with other kids. Of course, there had always been Selina, but that had always had a strange tension behind it. At first, she was the witness in his parents’ case, and then she was always on the edges, caught between his world and the gangs’. Lately, there had been Tommy and his crew, but Bruce wasn’t sure they counted as friends anyway. 

But with Jeremiah, Bruce didn’t have to try. He didn’t have to worry about his words, or get trashed every night just to be accepted. There was an easy peace that came with the two of them silently working on the generators, rushing over to show the other any time they made progress. 

When the plans were complete, one of them had brought a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Bruce hadn’t kept track of how much he’d had to drink (the champagne wasn’t the only alcohol in the bunker, after all), but he could say with confidence that it had been a lot. When he had gone out with Tommy, Bruce had drunk to run from his guilt, to make himself feel okay. This was the first time he had gotten drunk just because he could, and it felt so much better. He knew he had a stupid little smile on his face, and he didn’t care. Everything was happy and wonderful and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he’d have a killer headache the next morning but that didn’t detract from how pleasantly bubbly he felt.

Jeremiah was drunk too – not as drunk as Bruce, but he’d had enough to erase his perpetual look of anxiety. This was the first time he’d seen him completely carefree, and it was a good look. 

Bruce had long since curled up on a huge beanbag that he suspected Ecco had bought, as it didn’t seem Jeremiah’s style. Jeremiah sat on the edge of his bed, legs dangling off and a plastic cup in his hand (he kept putting off washing the dishes). He was talking about something, but Bruce wasn’t really listening. He was too busy looking. 

Jeremiah’s face was flushed and his hair wasn’t quite as put together as it usually was. At some point he’d lost his tie and jacket (not that Bruce understood why Jeremiah felt the need to wear a suit to work when he never left his own home, but he certainly wasn’t complaining), and one of the sleeves on his button-up had been rolled up. He looked animated and alive in a way he rarely was, and the realization hit Bruce like a train. 

His friend was incredibly attractive, and there was far too much distance in between them.

Jeremiah froze. Bruce didn’t see his lips move (and he was certainly looking) when Jeremiah asked “Really?”

Shit. Had he said that out loud? He certainly hadn’t meant to. But if he had, well, there was no going back now. Bruce meant to say something more collected, about how he thought Jeremiah was a fantastic and intelligent person that he loved to be around and also very much wanted in a more literal and immediate sense.

What he actually said was “You’re pretty and it’s really hot when you’re being smart.”

“You really think so?” Jeremiah asked, face bright red. 

Bruce nodded, because _of course_ he did and now Jeremiah was flustered and Bruce genuinely thought he might die if they stayed this far away from each other. And then somehow he was standing in the middle of the room and Jeremiah had put his drink down and was standing in front of him. They kissed, and Bruce had never dreamed that just kissing someone could feel like this.

Nearly every night he’d gone out with Tommy, Bruce had picked up some stranger at the club. They’d been beautiful, but every time had been the same. A frantic scramble to remove clothes, each using the other to make themselves feel good. None had ever stayed.

Kissing Jeremiah, fully clothed and standing in the middle of his room, made all those nights disappear. Bruce felt loved, he felt adored. He tripped and fell backward on the beanbag, and Jeremiah fell with him, both laughing as they kissed. Why hadn’t they done this before? Bruce tried to show how grateful he was for Jeremiah, how much he cared about him. He couldn’t say those things, because that would require separating his mouth from Jeremiah’s, something he was not willing to do and was unsure that he would ever want to do, but he tried to pour how he felt into every kiss. The word _love_ crossed his mind, and he didn’t push it away.

Almost as soon as it did, Jeremiah pulled back. Bruce tried to kiss him again, he was far from done, but Jeremiah shook his head. “You wouldn’t say that if you weren’t drunk.”

Bruce didn’t remember saying anything, but maybe he had. He had drunk quite a lot, after all.

“I meant everything that happened tonight. If you still feel the same way tomorrow, I will still mean it then.” Somehow, Bruce knew what he was trying to say. _I’ll still love you. I adore you._ Jeremiah took his hand and squeezed it before standing up and returning to his bed. “Get some sleep.”

The next morning, Bruce woke up still laying on the beanbag. His head throbbed. He wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but putting the pieces together, it wasn’t that hard to tell what had happened. He remembered kissing Jeremiah, remembered lying on the beanbag, Jeremiah over him. He remembered a tangible sense of disappointment, and he had woken up without Jeremiah near him. Something had happened, some horrific embarrassment. 

He called Alfred, who arrived to drive Bruce home, never commenting on his disheveled clothes or how his breath reeked of alcohol. When he arrived, Bruce sent Jeremiah a text, simply telling him he had gone home.

 

Though things had remained much the same between them after that night, the sense of calm and acceptance Bruce felt around Jeremiah was now tinged with something else. A deep longing filled with shame. Without knowing what had happened between them, Bruce wasn’t brave enough to make another move, no matter how much he wanted to.

Instead, he stayed best friends with Jeremiah. He watched him pull away, slowly enough to be almost imperceptible. Felt his paranoia about his brother grow, though Bruce thought he’d worked through that months ago. 

So when Bruce took Jeremiah to the graveyard, he knew something was wrong. Jeremiah had closed himself off, hunched his shoulders in his coat in a kind of fear Bruce hadn’t seen since they confronted Jerome. He knew something was off, but he never expected what happened. Jeremiah shooting the floor in front of him. Coming at him with a razor, threatening to peel off his face as “evidence”. 

 

Jeremiah can feel that Bruce is scared. He’s been scared all day, but most of that had been fear for Jeremiah. Now, he was afraid for himself. That was the point of today, of coming to the graveyard. Bruce had to be scared, because that was the only way he could make him see. As much as he wishes they could, the science dates can’t last forever. Because Gotham is a hell zone, and optimism and happiness have no place there. Jerome had shown him that. So he tried to make this revelation as painful as possible, to show Bruce what he already knew. That there was a cancer in Gotham, and it had infected even him.

Why can’t Bruce see that? He’s spent all day breaking down the image Bruce held of him (the person that he equally longed to be and hated), but Bruce doesn’t understand. He’s standing in the graveyard, restrained by Jerome’s followers, and Jeremiah can hear his betrayal, but it isn’t breaking him. How?

Instead, he’s stubbornly clinging to light, to hope. The cultists are chanting and Bruce isn’t hurt, not physically. Jeremiah would never allow that. But though Jeremiah can feel the pain of his betrayal clear as if it were his own, Bruce’s mind doesn’t follow the path laid out for him, the path that would show him how necessary Jeremiah’s plan is. And that’s all Jeremiah wants. Everything he is doing now, he’s doing so that he can have Bruce, his soulmate, beside him as they save the city. Instead, Bruce is asking _How did this happen, Why didn’t I see before, I thought we were friends._ Bruce, even now, is thinking _How can I save him,_ when he doesn’t realize that Jeremiah doesn’t need to be saved.

Jeremiah doesn’t understand. Why is Bruce still thinking like this? Why doesn’t he understand that Gotham needs to be razed in order to be rebuilt, just like he himself had to be? Jerome had helped him with that. Surely he can help Bruce become the person he needs to be.

The cultists’ chant began to die down around him. One shouted “Jerome is victorious at last!” A poor choice of words.  
Jeremiah pulled out his gun and shot him. Blood sprayed over his face. 

“Jerome, victorious? Are you serious?” Jeremiah started to think this plan hadn’t been the best idea. Using Jerome’s cultists might make Bruce think Jeremiah was like Jerome, when they couldn’t be more different. But he needed an army, and he’d started it now. He was committed. 

Looking Bruce in the eye, Jeremiah pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the blood off his face, taking his makeup with it. He knew the paper-white skin looked ghastly, but he could work with it. He kicked Jerome’s body into its grave. 

“I am the one who is victorious.”

This was the part he had been waiting for. Jeremiah was so excited, because now, finally, Bruce is able to see him for who he truly is. For who Jerome helped him become. And he will love him. He loved Bruce, but he’d been too scared to tell him before. Now, he was coming clean about everything. He knew Bruce loved him, he’d felt it during the long months they’d spent designing Jeremiah’s generators. Bruce had even told him that night, not that he remembered. But now that Bruce saw Jeremiah for who he truly was, they could be together. As they were always meant to be.

He launched into a speech, one directed both at his brother’s followers and at Bruce. He isn’t Jerome, and he is going to prove it. 

“Jerome was mad,” he said. “Look where that got him. Behold, the face of true sanity.”

Bruce said nothing, but Jeremiah could hear his shouting _No._ Shouting _You’re crazy_ and beneath that, the steady plea _Give me my friend back_.

So Jeremiah kept talking. If Bruce wasn’t convinced, the cultists wouldn’t be either. And he does need to convince them. He pulls out Jerome’s journal, the diary of madness covered in colorful rhinestones.

“Jeremiah, the gas worked!” Bruce finally spoke. “Think about it, you want to carry out Jerome’s crazy plans sanely? What could be madder than that?” He practically begged Jeremiah to stop, to accept his insanity. But Jeremiah _was_ sane.

In response, Jeremiah opened Jerome’s diary and read. “Jerome wanted to slather you in honey and have you eaten alive by corpse beetles,” he said. “Now that’s mad.”

Jeremiah had read this page before. He had read the entire diary before. Knowing his brother, he was fairly sure ‘slather you in honey’ was a euphemism, and crazy as Jerome was, he couldn’t fault his brother for wanting Bruce. The difference between the two of them was that at the end of the day, Jerome still wanted to kill Bruce while Jeremiah would worship the ground Bruce walked on if that’s what Bruce wanted from him.

But he couldn’t yet. Not while Bruce was still blind to the world.

“Now if I want to kill you, I’ll just do it. I’ll shoot you in the head, simply and sanely.” He raised his gun and pointed it at Bruce. It hurt him to do it, but he had to keep up the act, for his followers and for Bruce. Why won’t Bruce see that he isn’t crazy, he just knows how to save the city. His plan is illegal, but when have laws ever stopped anyone in Gotham? 

He lowered his gun. “But I don’t want to kill you. Because I want to show you how much we’ve changed things. Because I could not have done any of this without your help.”

“My help?” Bruce spat.

Finally, this is where he can explain himself. He can tell Bruce everything about the generators. And he does, because he’s proud of his work, because he wants Bruce to know. Because there’s nothing Bruce can do to stop what happens next. 

An explosion rose over the trees. The bunker was gone, but no matter. He didn’t need it anymore. His generators work, and he has removed Jim Gordon from the equation. Jim needed to die, not just because he was the only cop who could stop him, but because his followers needed revenge for Jerome’s death. This will be the breaking point for Bruce, it has to be. Bruce had managed to hold on to this ridiculous hope when Jeremiah had betrayed him, but surely he couldn’t after witnessing the death of Jim Gordon. 

Bruce doesn’t see. He was screaming and trying to break free of the cultists who are holding him. Trying to attack Jeremiah, and Jeremiah doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. Everything he’s done for Bruce is what Jerome had done for him. Why didn’t it work? And Bruce still fought, and Jeremiah could hear in his head Bruce’s hurt, his betrayal, and his refusal to stop fighting. 

Jeremiah sighed. He has more work to do. They are soulmates, after all, so Bruce has to come around eventually. There is no other way they can be together, and they _will_ be together. It’s destiny. The fact that he can still feel Bruce’s pain is evidence enough. 

 

Bruce watched Alfred leave the room. They’d just gotten back to the manor, and Bruce was still reluctant to let Alfred out of his sight. He knew that what he had seen had just been the fear gas, pumped in by Jeremiah just to torture him, but it had all felt so horribly real.  
Selina sat on the couch, smiling at him. No matter their fights, or how bad things had gotten in Gotham, Selina had always been there for him.

“Thank you again,” Bruce said, sitting down beside her. Selina deliberately put her feet up on his legs. “I don’t know what would have happened if you weren’t there.”

Selina frowned, just enough for him to notice. Below her casual air, she truly cared about him. He was pretty sure by now that they weren’t soulmates, but it didn’t really matter. Neither of them seemed to have one. 

Bruce’s eyes dropped to her lips, and he leaned forward slowly, giving her plenty of time to back away, or tell him to stop, that they were just friends and nothing more. Instead, she leaned into him, placing a hand on the back of his neck to hold him close. They kissed, soft and gentle, and Bruce tried to convey exactly how thankful he was for her, how grateful he was to have her in his life.

As he pulled away, a sharp thought cut through his mind, blocking out anything else. _Mine._ A long string of obscenities in Jeremiah’s voice echoed through his head, layers and layers of _No one else can touch him_ and _He’s mine_ over an all-consuming jealousy.

Selina’s hand fell to his shoulder. Somehow, she couldn’t hear it, couldn’t see what was about to happen.

“Why do you think he’s so obsessed with you?” She asked, and suddenly Bruce knew. He had no idea how he hadn’t figured it out when they spent months together. Maybe the lack of other people had blurred the line between when Jeremiah spoke to him aloud and in his mind. Whatever the reason, Bruce sat on his couch, Selina’s arm still around his shoulders, and knew with a piercing certainty that Jeremiah Valeska, former friend and current torturer, was his soulmate.

“He’s here,” Bruce said.

Selina’s eyes were wide, but she immediately sprang to her feet. Bruce stood beside her, but he knew he couldn’t fight. Not now, not after the day they’d had, not after what he’d just figured out.

“Were you expecting me, Bruce?” Jeremiah asked in that infuriatingly aloof voice he’d adopted. “I’m honored.”

“Why are you here, Jeremiah?” Selina pulled a knife from her sleeve.

“Why, I’m here for Bruce, of course.”

“Leave me alone,” Bruce said. He didn’t know what would work on Jeremiah, or if he was anywhere close to reasonable anymore. “You can’t make me be you.”

“All it takes is one bad day,” Jeremiah mused. “But that day isn’t over yet.”

Bruce froze as Jeremiah strode towards him, pushing Selina aside. He knew he had fought better opponents and won, but he couldn’t move. Jeremiah grabbed Bruce’s ripped sweater and pulled him closer. Bruce wanted to move, to shove Jeremiah away from him. He stayed perfectly still as Jeremiah kissed him hard, claiming him. 

Bruce almost fell over when Jeremiah let go of him. He watched in horror as Selina lunged at Jeremiah with her knife, only for a bullet from a gun in Jeremiah’s sleeve to rip through her stomach. 

“I love you, Bruce,” Jeremiah said, watching Selina slowly fall to the floor. “I only want you to understand.”

Bruce wanted to scream, to rush over to Selina and help her. He could only watch, helpless, as the pool of blood began to spread from underneath her. 

“I’m doing this all for you,” Jeremiah said, kissing a tear falling down Bruce’s cheek. Bruce finally broke free from his frozen shock to punch him in the face. Jeremiah stumbled back, laughing. Alfred ran into the room, tackling Jeremiah and punching him as Bruce ran to Selina. Her eyes had fallen closed, but her pulse still beat under his fingers. Bruce held her and closed his eyes, trying to pretend his face wasn’t smeared with red lipstick. That he couldn’t hear Jeremiah’s twisted confession, _I love you I love you I love you_ , playing over and over in his head.

 

Bruce stormed in to the precinct, glaring at the major. The major was speaking harshly to Harvey (Bruce was pleased to learn that the cops were about as happy as he was with the precinct’s new management, possibly less so), but he plastered a smile on his face as soon as he turned around to see Bruce. “Mr. Wayne, you’ll be perfectly safe. If you could help us learn the location of the bombs- “

Today was not the day for this, and Bruce said so. He’d always been good at speeches, so he made one. He told the major how much he did not want to be there, about how he would rather be with Selina. Contempt dripping from his words, he called the major out for not giving him the option to stay with her, for taking Alfred with them too. 

What he doesn’t say is how clueless he knows the major is. If this man had even the slightest idea what he was dealing with, he would listen to the GCPD. He would know that no matter what, Bruce would be safe. After all, Jeremiah would never hurt him, just the people around him. 

“Let’s get this over with.”

“Hello Bruce,” Jeremiah said as soon as Bruce entered the interrogation room. He had a silly smile on his face, and Bruce could feel how happy he was. “it’s great to see you.”

“Where are the bombs, Jeremiah?” Bruce asked. _Why won’t you just leave me alone?_

“Closer, please. Closer.”

Bruce walked until he stood only a couple feet away from Jeremiah. He wanted to fight, but knew that wouldn’t solve anything. If Jeremiah could just leave him alone so he could go back to Selina, he would love that. But it won’t happen, because Gotham City never makes things that easy.

“We’re destined to be together, you and I,” Jeremiah said, throwing a contemptuous glance at the surveillance camera. “We’re so much alike. I used to be at war with my true nature, just as you are. I learned to embrace it. So must you. I’m only trying to help you.”

“Help? By torturing everyone I care about?”

“I’m hurt by the implication that you don’t care about me,” Jeremiah said, still in that mocking monotone. Like he was playing a game.

Bruce glared at him. “I don’t.” _You took my Jeremiah and you killed him_ , he thought. _I cared about you before you became this. You think after Alfred, after Selina, you think I could care about you?_

_I know you can,_ Jeremiah thought.

“Ask about the bombs,” the major’s voice crackled in his ear.

“Where are the bombs?” Bruce repeated.

Jeremiah looked into the camera, putting on an over-the-top impression of innocence. “What bombs?”

“The bombs, you know what bombs,” Bruce snapped. _Why are you stalling?_ He asked in his head.

_I’m impressed you noticed,_ Jeremiah thought back with a smile. _They certainly haven’t._ “Oh, those bombs,” he said out loud. “I only had the one, but it did what it needed to. It brought you here.”

“I’m here,” Bruce said. “What are you going to do? You’re tied up.”

Bruce heard a flash of a very inappropriate thought he very much wished he had not heard. Jeremiah pretended he hadn’t accidentally (Bruce assumed it was accidentally) thought that and kept that smug smile on his face. “Bruce, I never said I was working alone.”

“Who is helping you?” Bruce advanced on Jeremiah. Over the last year or so, ever since Bruce had started being a vigilante, that determined approach had terrified more than a few criminals. With Jeremiah, it seemed to have the opposite effect. Bruce got the distinct impression he was trying very hard to not transmit his thoughts, but some still slipped through, far more detailed and explicit scenarios than before. Bruce stopped walking.

“Who?” Bruce repeated.

Jeremiah launched into a speech that, by this point, was getting familiar. He would open Bruce’s eyes to the world, turn Gotham into the city Bruce needed it to be, and on it went. This time though, he was only speaking to the cops outside the interrogation room. He sent a different speech to Bruce.

_I’ll tell you who is helping me in a minute. Just a minute more. I am doing this all for you, but I’m sorry it has to hurt this much. I do love you, even if you don’t believe me._

Bruce was done with waiting, with playing the game by Jeremiah’s rules. He was done with hearing how much Jeremiah loved him when Selina was in the hospital and he’d put her there. He grabbed Jeremiah’s jacket and shook him. He couldn’t hear Jeremiah’s thoughts this time, but he didn’t have to. He could read how much he was enjoying this all over his face, and no doubt so could the cops watching on the security camera.

“What. Is. His. Name?”

“You should know,” Jeremiah drawled, “you are his heir.”

Bruce stepped back in horror. He had killed Ra’s al Ghul. He was dead. How could he be alive?

Jeremiah heard him (Bruce needed to get better at shielding his thoughts), and the last thing Bruce saw before the room went dark was his smile.

 

Jeremiah strode into the room, two armed lackeys escorting Bruce behind him. He pulled the black hood off Bruce in a way that might have been a touch overdramatic and walked over to where Ra’s stood by the expansive windows.

He really hated having to kidnap Bruce, but some things were necessary. Ra’s said it was, and after all, Jeremiah’s plan to hurt those around Bruce until his eyes opened hadn’t worked out in his favor. It turns out some people are just born with justice in their blood, and Bruce is one of them. That doesn’t mean Jeremiah can’t open his eyes though – it just means it’ll take more planning. 

Ra’s doesn’t know what Jeremiah truly wants with Bruce. (Though to be perfectly clear, neither does Jeremiah. Some days, he wants Bruce to be his, in every sense of the word, to belong to him. Other days are lighter, when he dreams of some impossible idyllic life, of getting to call Bruce pet names and curl up on the couch while they watch some shitty movie Bruce will fall asleep halfway through and he knows those days will never, could never exist, but some days he misses them badly enough to hurt.) But it doesn’t matter; Ra’s wants Bruce to reform Gotham, to save it, and that’s what Jeremiah wants too. That’s what he will admit to, anyway.

Ra’s said something creepy about how Bruce brought him and Jeremiah together, and Jeremiah didn’t care. He wouldn’t have cared if the devil himself had sent Ra’s al Ghul, as long as it would get him Bruce Wayne in the end. And it would, he was sure of it.

“Did your men retrieve my bombs?” Jeremiah asked. He tried to sound emotionless, like he didn’t care, but he did, so very much.

“They are en route to their positions as we speak,” Ra’s said, standing too close to Bruce and with an arm over Bruce’s shoulder that was probably supposed to be fatherly, but that really just made Jeremiah want to break Ra’s’s fingers. “From here, we can take in the full majesty of Gotham’s destruction.”

Jeremiah wasn’t as bothered by the destruction as he wanted to be. It is, after all, his show. His grand finale. But he found himself distracted (the way he always was when Bruce was in the room). He didn’t like that the only reason Bruce was there was to watch something else. An irrational spike of jealousy shot through him – why couldn’t he be the center of Bruce’s attention? Or at least the room he designed. He’s particularly proud of the fairy lights – they were the most romantic thing he could think of on short notice that wouldn’t tip Ra’s off to the fact that he very much wanted anything to do with Bruce to be romantic. He wondered if Bruce had noticed them.

“You’re insane,” Bruce said to Ra’s. He was sending a steady stream of annoyance over his kidnapping at Jeremiah, along with a side helping of _I can’t believe you teamed up with Ra’s, can no one ever stay dead in this town._

Ra’s went on another speech (Really, how many of those did he have in store?) and Jeremiah almost rolled his eyes. Blah blah, “the dark knight your city needs,” did he think he was original because Jeremiah had been saying this right from the beginning.

“Ra’s helped me realize that rebuilding Gotham and rebuilding you were not separate. They are one and the same goal.” Jeremiah said. _Sorry, I know he’s unbearable,_ he said to Bruce. _But I did need his help with the whole moving the bombs while I was arrested thing._

“We could have rebuilt Gotham together,” Bruce said. _I know that’s what you want._ “We don’t need to destroy it.”

“I wish we didn’t have to. But, as I’ve told you again and again, Gotham is rotting. And the only way to cure rot is to cut it out.” Jeremiah moved to stand beside Bruce, just a touch too close, and put a hand on his shoulder. 

“Gotham falls, we rise.” He leaned in and spoke into Bruce’s ear. He knew he could have just used their link to speak directly to Bruce, but some part of him wanted Ra’s to hear. “Together.”

 

As it turned out, the destruction was quite the spectacle. It just hadn’t gone down quite like Jeremiah thought it would. Barbara Keane had ruined it all, coming in there guns blazing. Ra’s had even gotten one last speech in there as he crumbled to dust, Bruce having killed him once again. 

Maybe, Jeremiah hoped, that would do the trick. Bruce had gone off the deep end last time he had killed Ra’s, why should this time be any different? And if it finally showed Bruce what he had been trying to make him see all along, well, Jeremiah thought that was definitely worth taking a couple bullets to the shoulder for.

 

Three months later, Jeremiah realized his plan had failed. Again. He hadn’t seen Bruce since the bridges blew, and he missed him so badly his heart hurt. He stood on the balcony overlooking the drained, blood-splattered pool and leaned on the elevator grate. So this was his church.

He hadn’t been sure about it when Ecco first suggested the idea. He doesn’t think himself God. Ecco certainly does. She hadn’t hesitated when Jeremiah handed her the gun, loaded with one bullet, and told her to shoot herself. The bullet had blown through her head, caught in her skull, and now she loved Jeremiah more than ever. He didn’t realize, at first. Couldn’t understand how taking a bullet for someone wouldn’t break their devotion. But he would take a bullet for Bruce. He had. 

All Jeremiah had wanted was a way to test his followers’ loyalty. After all the trouble he’d gone through to turn Jerome’s cult, he didn’t want to waste effort on soldiers who would betray him as soon as a plan faltered, or as soon as there was a better option. And so the church was born. Any who passed through its grueling initiation had proven they were willing to kill or die for Jeremiah. He was their God, and they would worship him.

Being a god was a lot more demanding than he had thought. He enjoyed the mystery, the drama of it, but he didn’t think he would ever be used to the way his followers parted around him as if he were the sun. 

“They’ll do anything for you,” Ecco had said, standing with him in the street and looking up at this dilapidated wreck of a building. She didn’t say “I’d do anything for you,” but it was implied.

Once, he had thought the adoration of his devotees, of Ecco, would fill the steadily-growing hole in his heart. If Bruce refused to see the truth, if Bruce stubbornly waited by that cat’s bedside inside the doomed green zone instead of ruling the dark with him, that was Bruce’s fault. Right? 

But it didn’t matter. Bruce wasn’t with him, and he should be. Jeremiah needed him to be. Empty, fawning worship didn’t compare to the feeling of being genuinely loved, a feeling he hadn’t known since before his bombs were built. So he broadcast his hurt, his loneliness, as far as he can. Bruce could feel it, he knew. 

Some days he thought of repenting. It was too late for him; he could never go back to that shuttered, nobly idiotic vision. That didn’t stop the thought from flitting through his head, a pipe dream. Just as he would convince himself it wasn’t too late, that Bruce could still love him, he would hear Bruce’s unfiltered terror for Selina, or receive one of his messengers, beat to shit but making certain to pass along Bruce’s message: I’m coming for you.

Much as he hates it, Jeremiah looks forward to the day when Bruce finally fings him. He will die, he knows that. Either Bruce will break his no-killing rule or Selina will do it for him. Jeremiah found he didn’t care. Being killed by Bruce Wayne would be an honor.

 

Bruce thought he had lived through hell before. After Jeremiah blew up the bridges, Bruce saw Gotham descend into a realm of horror he had thought unimaginable. The GCPD slowly ran out of food as refugees from Gotham’s poorest areas flooded in. He and the officers sacrificed sleep, food, and ammunition to protect their tentatively held safe zone. He was running on empty, and he couldn’t help thinking this is what Jeremiah had wanted. To break him, wholly and completely.

When he wasn’t in the hospital with Selina, Bruce went out on patrol. Any thug he came across, he sent running with a message. Jeremiah had to know Bruce was looking for him, but the coward wouldn’t show himself.

Jeremiah hadn’t bothered blocking their link, either. He refused to reveal the location of his base, but his thoughts flooded into Bruce’s head for hours every day. _Please, come back to me. I love you._ He heard Jeremiah’s aching loneliness, felt the same emptiness. 

_You shot Selina,_ he said back. _You tortured Alfred. Tried to kill Jim._

_I did. I’m sorry it didn’t work._

_Leave me alone._

_You can’t seem to leave me alone, Bruce. I get your messages. It’s sweet, really._

_I don’t love you._

_I know._

Sometimes, Bruce would dream of before. Of silently working on the generators, each comforted by the other’s presence. Of that half-remembered night, one he at once wants to forget forever and to relive ad infinitam. 

Once, he dreamt so realistically he forgot himself. He forgot everything Jeremiah had ever done to hurt him, that he was a lost cause. All he saw was his soulmate, in front of him in the now-ruined bunker. Jeremiah, his Jeremiah, with red hair and glasses he found far too cute and freckles he could only see when he got really close. “I love you,” Bruce said, and kissed him.

He woke up hating himself.

**Author's Note:**

> so uh, i'm sorry. come yell at me on tumblr @alpacasandravens  
> comments/kudos greatly appreciated!!


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